(Photo: Fanpop)

If The Breakfast Club taught us anything, it's that anyone--even the popular girl and the nerd!--can land in detention. It's highly unlikely, however, that an entire school would be sent to detention simultaneously, no matter how Mean Girls they get.

But that's exactly what happened at a secondary school in Nelson, New Zealand, when a computer glitch accidentally sent out text messages to the parents of almost every student notifying them that their child had to report to detention.

"[Student name] has an after school attendance detention on Thurs 11 April 2013. Contact year tutor for further information," read the message. It's unclear exactly what caused the computer glitch, but we like to think a kid who actually had detention hacked the system to get out of it.

"We have 1500 students who theoretically are on detention but in actual fact very few of them are," the school's principal clarified. No word on whether or not the kids who are actually serving detention will mess with the bull and get the horns.

Mr. Dotcom. (commons.wikimedia.org/
Andreas_Bohnenstengel)

It seems the government of New Zealand may have gotten more than it bargained for with that bonkers raid on Kim Dotcom's compound. The whole incident, which should have been a simple wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am extraction and extradition, has metastasized into a endless headache over the most banal of legalities.

For instance: It appears that Mr. Dotcom, despite his legal residency, was unlawfully spied upon by the nation's Government Communications and Security Bureau. The cops told them it was okay, and rather than doing a little independent verification, they proceeded accordingly.

Consequently, the Prime Minister has personally apologized to Mr. Dotcom. Via the New Zealand Herald:

In a media conference after the release of the report into unlawful monitoring of Mr Dotcom and an acquaintance, Mr Key said he was "appalled" at the agency, saying it had "failed at the most basic of hurdles."

"Of course I apologise to Mr Dotcom, and I apologise to New Zealanders."

Kim Dotcom took to Twitter to accept the apology--conditionally, anyway:

@johnkeypm, I accept your apology. Show your sincerity by supporting a full, transparent & independent inquiry into the entire Mega case.

— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) September 27, 2012

He added:

@johnkeypm, show the world that your government is not an American dancing bear & that fairness & due process matter in New Zealand.

— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) September 27, 2012

Meanwhile, the Herald reports that Mr. Key's opponents in Parliament are calling for further investigation into the matter.

One would think that getting arrested would've put the kibosh on Kim Dotcom's larger-than-life persona. However, it appears that his Amazing Technicolor Dream Life has its own gravitational force and pulls in everyone who comes into its orbit.

We look forward to the inevitable shenanigans if the FBI ever manages to get him stateside.

(h/t Torrent Freak)

Serial numbers, plz. (Photo: flickr.com/lynxman)

Apple is reportedly attempting to poach members of the Google Maps team. You know what they say: If you can't beat 'em, steal 'em. [TechCrunch]

The latest boat lifted by the rising tide of the New York tech boom: accounting firms. [Crain's New York]

Apparently NYPD officers were stationed outside Apple's Fifth Avenue flagship, asking new iPhone 5 owners to register their serial numbers in case of theft. [Yahoo]

Meanwhile, in New Zealand: A court has ordered an investigation into whether Kim Dotcom was the victim of "unlawful spying." [BBC News]

Someone called the cops. (Screencap)

No wonder Kim Dotcom spends so much time taunting the authorities from his Twitter account. A New Zealand news outfit has released the first footage of the January raid on the Megaupload mogul's mansion, and sounds like Mr. Dotcom's dealings with the authorities have been aggravating, to say the least.

The video opens with a helicopter landing and the deployment of the officers participating in the raid. The disgorging of black-clad SWAT-type officers and unfriendly-looking police dogs is pretty much the extent of the spectacle, and there's no footage from the goings-on inside the house. However, the video also includes radio communications exchanged during the raid, and Channel 3 has spliced that with testimony from Mr. Dotcom himself to create a pretty good play-by-play:

http://youtu.be/pMas0tWc0sg

Frankly, we'd suspected that the colorful Mr. Dotcom might've been exaggerating just a tad for effect, but the video attests that the raid was just as Hollywood-blockbuster as he makes it sound.

For starters, Mr. Dotcom didn't suspect anything from just the chopper noise—as his guests often arrived early—but when he began hearing mysterious "pinging" sounds, he pressed a button to alert the entire household (via SMS) that something was up. From there he ducked to the "red room," how he apparently refers to the supposed "panic room" where the authorities found him. The door wasn't locked, he claims. "I thought, you know, I'd better wait for them to come to me," he told the court, "rather than me popping out of that secret door and maybe, you know, scaring someone who might shoot me."

That's probably the most commonsense thing Mr. Dotcom has ever said.

The room itself is a tad disappointing, though—just a chamber tucked behind a secret door in a hall closet. We were hoping for something a little more high-tech, not just an enormous empty room with tacky red carpeting. If you're going to bother with a hidden room, at least put some bookshelves and a liquor cabinet in there, you know?

Mr. Dotcom also reports that he got a little roughed up: "I had a punch to the face, I had boots kicking me down to the floor, I had a knee into the ribs."

One also gets the sense that the tide of opinion in New Zealand might be drifting to Mr. Dotcom. The anchor's voice-over drolly notes that, "If it all seems slightly ... American ... the FBI were there on the day and during the planning period leading up to it."

Subtext: Leave it to a bunch of Americans to turn the arrest of a suspected copyright violator into Live Free or Die Even Harder.

Dear Mr. Dotcom . . .

They might have a write a sequel to "Women Who Love Men Who Kill." Women Who Love Men Who Allegedly Facilitate Piracy?

At a hearing today at the High Court in New Zealand, Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom told the court that "during his time in prison he had received 'funny visits,' phone calls and contacts from people he had never heard of including a succession of women wanting to be his friend," as TorrentFreak reports.

Hmm, wonder if any of those women were wearing a Clarice Starling-like pantsuit and a wire.

If those ladies are looking to become the next Mrs. Dotcom (his actual wife is currently carrying twins), these ladies might have to wait awhile though. Mr. Dotcom, who is fighting extradition to the United States on copyright infringement, racketeering and money laundering charges was denied bail again for posing a "significant" flight risk. Something to do with his helicopter and private jet, perhaps?

The Megaupload founder also claimed police abuse:

When it was Dotcom’s turn to take the stand he told the Court that during his high-profile arrest last month, police had assaulted him after finding him in a secure panic-room known as the “Red Room”.

“I was punched in the face, I was kicked down on the floor,” Dotcom said. “One guy was standing on my hand so my nail was ruptured and my hand was bleeding, it was quite aggressive.”

Not a great way to start a fight the FBI picked at Hollywood's behest.